


elysium

by black_nata



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Genre: M/M, Post-Fury Road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:18:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4324641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_nata/pseuds/black_nata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slit can feel him looking again. Looking in that way that makes his skin grow pins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	elysium

  
  
Dead. Dead? Sundown. Cold. The desert black, stretched across for miles and miles, beyond indifferent tall mountains and a solitary tree, over mud and filth and the rusting carcasses of vehicles. Smoldering. There is... pain. Pain, right there, against his side. Like a warm companion. Something smells good. Something cooking close by. Something cooking...  
  
Slit realizes it's him.  _Him_ , burning. Him, sprawled out, no—  _buried_ , under loose sand, no different than the scraps of metal scattered all around. Burning. The thought draws an involuntary bark of laughter out of him. All nice and roasted, ready-made into a treat for any Buzzards that might come by. And they will, Slit thinks. There's parts here. Too much good metal to be abandoned. Better Buzzards than those Citadel traitors, he argues, and if there was any Aqua Cola to spare, Slit would spit in the dirt.  
  
Aqua Cola. Bad thing to think about here. Bad thing to think about anywhere. Sand in his mouth, lead in his limbs, and fire, actual fire, not just the hot embrace of sunlight, right in his skin, in his very bones. If only Slit had a little Chrome. A little can of it, for eating. Good, that is. Numbs the pain, the bad kind of pain that isn't glorious to Valhalla. _Valhalla... Immortan..._  
  
So he has been rejected. He groans as he tries to pull a limb out from under the earth-blanket. It isn't night and everything feels too warm. Too cold? No. But Slit can't explain the shiver. Organic would have most likely called it a death shiver, night fever-shiver, Hel-shiver, the kind that takes old War Boys over when there's no blood bag in the whole world to fix the weakness any longer. He bites the inside of his cheek, feels his teeth chatter. Tastes good. Lizard roast.  
  
Slit tries again. With a grunt and a push, something fleshy comes out of the sand. It's not supposed to be black and yellow like that, is it? Roadkill lizard roast. The smell of it is worse out in the hot, dry air. Maybe he should put it back under the dirt and wait until a sandstorm puts a lid on his makeshift grave.  
  
Silly Slit. Only the Imperators get graves. Oh, he'll be eaten by Buzzards alright, Valhalla-less before the next dawn, when the night draws over and all manner of nocturnal spiky cars crawl out of their dens to play. Maybe they'll give praise before they eat him. _Good Slit. Tasty Slit. You serve a purpose, finally_. Maybe they'll even marinade him in guzzoline, add some flavour. Make him real fancy, like a stew.  
  
He sinks back into the sand with a pleased grin. It takes a while staring at the sky for him to realize his left eye is swollen shut. Fan-bloody-tastic. Unlucky side, down to the last breath. Unlucky since the moment Nux botched up Slit's slits. Carved him up all wrong it nearly bled him dry. Not like the other side is any luckier, what with his eye looking like scrambled roach guts, tumors chewing at his spine, but now that the left's been charred, Slit figures that's the one worse off.  
  
Nux. Traitor Nux. Slit should have promoted himself right then and there that day, cut off his bloodbag and his head and his bloodbag's head and spared himself the trouble. He sighs. With what little he can see out of his roach-gut of an eye, he stares at the red horizon. Good thing about the desert, long sunsets. Long sunsets and quick sunrises, quicker than thunder and the V8. Right then, everything feels cool.  
  
Slit hopes the Buzzards get to him before he freezes to death. Slow, painful way to go, no shine in it. He stares at the horizon and thinks about the guzzoline stew. Hopes they do him like that. Maybe even—  
  
"Hey. War Boy. Hey."  
  
Ghost-voices? Hel is nearer than he thought. But he wanted to ask the Buzzards for one last request. About that guzzoline stew. Best thing when one's Valhalla-banned and ready for death, to be eaten clean. Maybe he'll barter with Hel for a few more minutes. Give her some trinkets off his belt, good bits and bobs, nice things like bolts and screws and even his prized knife.  
  
"War Boy. Ya hear me? Ah, he's blind as a bat. Hey, Ace, come look. This one's alive an' breathin'."

 

—

  
  
Hell looks the same as the Citadel. Smells better than the Citadel, feels softer than the Citadel right under him, like a nest of clouds, feels strangely clean and shiny like Chrome. Looks more like Valhalla than Hell.  _Looks_ , Slit startles, and finds that he can see out of his left eye, too. Funny, that is. Everything's better than before. Did he make it to Valhalla after all?  
  
Slit lifts his aching head to look at himself. Leg's all wrapped up in green stuff. Doesn't smell as bad as it did when he was still living. Strange. The other leg —and here Slit draws in a horrified breath— is bare to the thigh, washed and scrubbed clean, paint-less like a breeder's. Is this it, then? Is Hel-Immortan going to make him one of his wives? Have him make pups for all eternity? Slit shivers.  
  
Weakly, he pushes himself up, and weakly, he scrabbles for purchase on the white sheets. It ain't right, things like this that make a War Boy soft. Slit liked his spot on the ground right among all the other pups, and he liked his spot in the rock hole with the lancers after that. He doesn't like this now. He doesn't want to be breeding stock, not when being battle-fodder's all he's ever known.  
  
"You're up, I see," a voice says. Slit turns to find a breeder staring right at him. No, not a breeder. Too old. Too old to be a breeder but too clean to be a Wretched. Like Miss Giddy. But Miss Giddy was one of a kind. "Never thought you'd make it. Burnt like a snake steak. But there's healin' plants in these parts, miracle plants. Furiosa lets everyone have their share."  
  
Slit nearly churns his guts at the words. So, he has survived. Banned from Valhalla, banned from Hell, banned from the glory of death and stuck with these traitors that want him all softened up and healed.  
  
"Who 're you?" Slit spits, vicious like the reptile everyone always takes him for. "What's all this green stuff on me? You workin' some kind of spell?" He reaches for the knife at his belt and finds nothing. Not even his trousers.  
  
The Not-Giddy's eyes track the movement like a crow. "Yeah, thought you'd do that," she sighs, rising to her feet. She's not dressed like Miss Giddy, either, Slit notes. Not dressed like anyone he's ever seen this side of the desert. Something at the sight of her makes Slit want to curl up in a fleshy ball and hiss. "Took all your stuff for now. 'Til Furiosa sorts you lot out."  
  
Then, she comes closer and puts something next to his cloud-nest. Liquid. Guzzoline? No. Shimmery like the desert, but blue instead of yellow, no, not blue, something that Slit can't find a word to describe—  
  
Aqua Cola.  
  
"There's more where that came from, if you're nice. Don't try to snap nobody, ya hear? Or I'll make sure that War Boy that done vouched for you gets made into dog tucker."  
  
Slit lets his eyes go wide. War Boy? Which War Boy? He watches the Not-Giddy walk out with her wrinkled lips in a smirk as the question rings through him like a hammer on nails. Slit already knows. There was only one Imperator that traitored the Immortan, and only one War Boy to match. Unlucky. Everything that Boy touches turns unlucky. Torn apart, like Slit's cheeks and his ride and his body, and put back together all soft.  
  
Soft enough to be tempted by water. To reach for it and let it past his lips without even realizing he's done it. Weak. All his scars for nothing, all his strength washed away with that first gulp. Slit hates himself for it more than he hates Nux. By the V8, when he sees him... He throws the cup against the wall, listens to its ugly clang.  
  
A spell, that's all this is. Turns minds into mush. Pliant and worthless. Water is the stuff of spells. That green stuff, too, what with the way it brought him back to life with nothing when it would have taken the Organic whole blood bags to repair the damage. Not that he would have wasted any on a half-dead War Boy.  
  
Slit rubs at his eyes. Expects his hands to come away stained black, and then remembers that they made him breeder-chrome. Shiny and soft and weak. And sleepy. Is that him purring like the V8? Can't be. War Boys don't purr. War Boys don't...

 

—

  
  
"Rest. Rest some more, ya need it."  
  
Someone's pushing him back down. Down on the soft cloud-nest bed, the breeder bed, against the white sheets, and for a moment, Slit lets the fear of being Hel-Immortan's wife wash over him like thunder-shock. But it's the Citadel. Slit is alive, this isn't Hell, and Nux is here—  
  
"You  _fffffffilth_ ," Slit hisses, precious spit flying everywhere. If his body wasn't still asleep, he'd choke the half-life out of Nux with his bare hands. "You did it. You killed us all. Killed us dead!"  
  
Nux makes a pained sound when Slit goes for his throat. Slit likes that. Likes him hurting after all he's done, after washing the Chrome off Slit's skin and his innards and his breath. Washing it off the both of them. Nux looks different without his war paint.  
  
He doesn't say a word to Slit. Holds him down and looks at him with sad-happy eyes, weak, soft eyes but somehow everything else about him feels stronger. Maybe he ain't, Slit thinks. Maybe it's just because Slit done lost all his shine that Nux looks so Chrome, even without his ash. Slit struggles for a few more minutes, lips a tight line. Then he goes all pliant like a rat in a snare.  
  
"Killed us, Nux," he rasps. "Gonna make bracelets out of your teeth once I'm up and standing, you'll see. Better run."  
  
Damn half-life smeg. Even made his insults sound weak, like he doesn't really mean them. But he does. He does, swears it by the V8. He  _does_.  
  
Nux only looks at him all strange. Looks like he wants to say something but keeps it in like phlegm, blocking up his throat. Slit watches him swallow. His lips look different, too. Scars don't look as bad any longer, as scary. What's the point of having scars if they don't make nothing scary, but soft and supple like a pup?  
  
After a while, Nux pulls something out of his pockets. Pebbles. Purple pebbles. Like everything else now, they look soft, easy enough for Slit to break with his teeth. "Here," Nux says, his voice sweet like Aqua Cola, "Eat this. 'S good for you. Good juice inside," and puts a few of the pebbles in Slit's hand.  
  
Out of habit, Slit gobbles up the whole lot without a question. They're as Nux promised. All juice, just like a bug inside but not as crunchy or sour. Sweet, so sweet it makes Slit wince and want to spit it out, if he wasn't sure that would earn him a smack on the head. "What is it?" he slurs, mouth half-full and dribbling. "Some kinda egg?"  
  
"Nah, nah," Nux laughs. Slit wants to recoil at the sound of it. Strange. All of it's strange. Soft and muted, blurry and dream-like. The way things never were and never should be at the Citadel. "It's fruit. Grapes. From the Immortan's vineyard. Now it's everyone's vineyard, there's plenty for all!"  
  
Slit wants to squash Nux's excitement right under his big boot. "You took Immortan's stuff?" he growls. If Slit hadn't swallowed it already, he would have spat it back out. Weak.  _Weak_ , and now Nux is looking to have them both skinned alive, eating Immortan's stuff, sleeping in his breeder-bed, drinking his Aqua Cola. "He'll shred us, fool! Immortan Joe'll be chewing on our innards alive for it!"  
  
Nux stares at him for a minute, quiet, then, "Don't you know?" and even though it's just a question, it's an answer, too.  
  
He feels his teeth grit. Feels them catch on the tips of his staples and on the rising mountains of scars on the insides of his cheeks. Wants to chew some more until they bleed again. Stupid Nux. Infecting everyone with his stupid, his weak, taking the shine out of everything he touches. Slit grunts and springs out of the bed.  
  
"Where 're you goin'?" he hears Nux shout behind him.  
  
Green stuff falls off with every step he takes. Slit catches a glimpse of skin beneath, mangled, raw and pale and looking like a snake's underbelly. Maybe he should start crawling like one, too, the way his own driver tore him down from the heights of Valhalla and brought him low. With that thought, he stomps through corridor after corridor, snarling.  
  
All he sees are War Pups. Some painted, some bare. Looking at him like he's gone and grown another tumor. Slit wishes he would. At this point, even the lumps chewing at his spine would be better than whatever's right around the corner.  
  
Past the blood shed is where he finds her. Not-Giddy. Or, at least, what used to be the blood shed, but now looks like a vision straight out of Valhalla. Everything's brighter. There's that green stuff again, on the ground, on the walls, right in the rock like it all just decided to burst out of there one day. "Hey!" Slit shouts at her, but all the while he can't take his eyes off of it. The V8 wrapped in green. "Where's my stuff? I want my stuff!"  
  
She looks him up and down. Razor-gaze, that is, sharp like a Buzzard's spine. Almost makes him feel modest all of a sudden. "I see that," she drawls. "Come on," and guides him out to another chamber. Slit's never seen so much green. Where did it all come from? What's it do? Immortan never had as much, from what the older Boys told them.  
  
Does it matter? It's all stolen, Slit thinks, all of it stolen and bad, meant for spells. It's poison. That's why it's green. Immortan said all green things are poison. All things green and blue and anything not the colour of zinc oxide and engine grease. There. Now Slit's gone and got himself in a mood. War-mood.  
  
"Got that War Boy here," Not-Giddy says once they're past the green Nux told him about. Immortan's grapes. Sunlight's beating down on everything, but somehow it all feels Aqua Cola-cool. "Your Imperator's lancer. He's as naked as a pup. Needs his stuff."  
  
Imperator's lancer? But he ain't lancer to any Imperator. Slit's too busy looking at the green to notice who Not-Giddy's talking to, but once he does, it takes a sturdy kick to the gut from Furiosa to get him off her. Can't help it. She traitored the lot of them and took the Citadel for herself. Burned him raw. Couldn't even kill him right so he could fly to Valhalla.  
  
"Fight's over, War Boy," she says, pulling his belts and trousers from a gap in the wall and chucking them right at his head. "You can stop kicking now."  
  
Slit spits at her, foaming. "Never! I don't take orders from traitors. You're not my Immortan," and with another insolent hiss, "I'll show you! I'll bring the Gas Town boys right on top of you! Bullet Farmers, too. By the V8, I'll even bring the Buzzards down, and they won't even eat you clean, just dry you out in the sand, Wretched-like. You'll see."  
  
Furiosa comes up close and stares him down. He can hear the drag of Not-Giddy's blade coming out of its sheath behind him. Slit gulps. Glory be, they'll shank him. Send him straight to Valhalla if he puts up a good fight. He feels a grin splitting his face in two, the way he likes it, and then notices his driver's reflection in the stained windows right next to Furiosa.  _Witness me_ , he wants to say.  _This is the best I'll ever get thanks to you_.  
  
"Good luck with that," Furiosa suddenly says. There's something in her eyes, knowing, like the gaze of a cobra. "Have fun crossing the moat. Hope you can swim."  
  
What's a moat? What's a swim? She turns her back on him there, and Slit thinks how easy it would be to reach for Not-Giddy's steel all fast and run it through the both of them. But she's still looking, Slit knows. Somehow, even though her head's turned, she's still looking, eyes in the back of her skull, spider-like. He'd be dead before he tried. No shine in that.  
  
"C'mon, Slit," he hears Nux whisper. "Put your stuff on. Let's get some grub in ya, yeah?"  
  
Slit hates him. Hates her, and her, and himself. He looks at the ground in submission. Doesn't even say nothing as Nux drags him out of there by the belts in his grip and pushes him down another corridor. It's a maze, this new Citadel. Doesn't even realize they're in the mess hall until Nux shoves a plate of something red and green in front of him. Slit can't recognize a damn thing.

  
  
—

  
  
Slit still doesn't know what a moat is.  
  
But he knows that's Aqua Cola drowning the desert all around, blinding with its shimmer, running past the Skull's teeth like endless, endless streams of vomit. Slit overheard the breeders talk about it, about how Furiosa's pumping it all out from under the earth and putting it on top. Seems wrong, somehow. All that Cola, free for all. Attracting everyone and everything for miles. Buzzards and Riders gonna kill them for it soon enough.  
  
He says so to Nux. Nux, whom Furiosa made her Imperator, which makes Slit an Imperator's lancer, which would be shine if Slit wasn't so ticked off about everything else.  
  
"It ain't like that, Slit," Nux says. They're right at the top of the Citadel, in the Milking Mother tower, the breeder tower, right where all the trees and the windmills and the green is at most. On the opposite cliff, Slit can see the Wretched gathered where the Organic's shed used to be. They don't look as Wretched as they did before. "Furiosa made a treaty with 'em. They keep their grubby mitts off, and she gives them all the Aqua Cola they need."  
  
"Yeah?" Slit growls. There's a mocking tilt to his voice, he knows, they way Nux starts looking at him like a disrespected pup. "What's stopping them from coming here an' taking what they want?"  
  
"Snipers," Nux nonchalantly says, without a moment's pause. Slit's eyes go wide. "Vuvalini snipers. Not as soft as you thought."  
  
Slit scoffs at Nux's smile. He liked him better when he was a weakling and couldn't do nothing without a blood bag strapped to his side. Now, ever since he started drinking Aqua Cola and eating green stuff, even Larry and Barry seem to be getting smaller while he gets bigger. Can't be. That's cancer, that is. Doesn't go away. That's what the Immortan said. That's why they had to be so kamakrazee, dead before their half-lives ran out.  
  
He leans back in the grass. Feels strange enough without his war paint, feels stranger when the green stuff brushes his skin. Almost like the earth's kissing him better.  
  
And then that's Nux kissing him better. Nothing breeder-like, just on the cheek, right on the staples. Makes his gut flutter like crow wings. "What's that for?" he mutters, almost like he's pissed about it. Isn't, though. Just likes pushing things as far as they go, all the way down like a gas pedal. "Don't you have a breeder for that? Saw you with 'er."  
  
That sure revs Nux up, Slit notes, pleased. "Ain't a breeder no more," Nux growls. His eyes light up like guzzoline flames. "She's an Imperator now, like me. Got better things to do than go fraternizin' and all. 'Sides," and Nux leans down low over Slit, right where he was when he laid that kisser on him, "You're lower on the ranks. You're my lancer, ain't it? Then you'd damn well better show some respect."  
  
Slit grins. There. Look how easy that was, turning him mad like that. He laughs as he watches the black of his new Imperator's eyes go big, laughs harder as Nux smacks the side of his head. Stupid Nux, going on about fraternizing and ranks and respect. Like they haven't been living off their own piss since the day they were plucked fresh.  
  
If they were standing, Slit is sure from the look on the Boy's face that Nux would have wrestled him to the ground. Lying down like this, Nux can only roll them about here and there, tugging at Slit's ears all soft-like and playful and slapping his stapled cheeks. They're probably killing the grass, Slit thinks. Killing it dead and then Furiosa's going to kill them dead, too.  
  
Slit cackles until they find themselves under a windmill's shade. Strange things, those, spinning like hot engine fans. Slow and languid. Everything goes quiet all of a sudden. Nux's got this weird look on his face and Slit has to push him hard to get him off.  
  
Now he's gone and made himself thirsty for Aqua Cola, all that pushing around. Made himself thirsty for grapes and green and tomatoes and something that isn't quite a food. Not unlike the thrill of lancing. Not unlike the push of the hard wind against him and the purr of the V8 right beneath. Yeah, he's gone and made himself thirsty for something, alright.  
  
"Slit?" Nux murmurs. If it was any other time, Slit'd tell him to speak up, loud like a wild dog's bark and not all soft like a pup. But Slit doesn't feel like saying a damn word. "You wanna—"  
  
"Put a cork in it, ratbag," he juts in, red in the face. "Or I'll carve out your entrails with this here shiv." Slit give his belts an obnoxious jingle. That'll teach him, Slit thinks after Nux goes silent, laid back in the green. Slit doesn't really mean all that stuff, just like he didn't mean it when he felt the criss-cross of Nux's scarred lips against him, but that'll teach him to go soft on Slit.

 

—

  
  
Kamakrazee. The whole desert's kamakrazee, alive and thrumming like the Doof's guitar. They're all hyped up on guzzoline and mad, mad with the heat and the music and the pleasure of a trade run gone just right. First run in weeks. First run since Furiosa gave Immortan Joe a brand new face.  
  
Slit was expecting the Boys to go soft ever since the Citadel was taken over by breeders. Was all revved up for a revolution, ready to watch Furiosa and her lot de-throned in the Immortan's name. Not like that ever happened.  
  
There must be something in that Aqua Cola, Slit thinks. Someone must be spiking their meals with rotgut. There's no reason for this newfound shine, the whole Citadel screaming Furiosa's name with grins even wider than Slit's, hopped up on the thought of full-lives and green. There's less and less dying War Boys, and more of them growing big and strong and shiny without the help of Valhalla.  
  
"Buzzards left! Eyes on, eyes on!"  
  
"Just an escort, Ace," Furiosa shouts over the wind. "The treaty, remember?"  
  
"Force of habit, boss." Slit can see the faint hint of a smile on Ace's crooked face. There are smiles on every War Boy's face in the party. They're happy, but they don't look it. They look rabid. Absolutely mad, kamakrazee mad in ways they never dreamed of looking before. They've ascended. It puts the fear of the V8 in their enemies, at least what few of those they still have.  
  
Slit screams from the top of the Gigahorse, banging his chest like some sort of beast. So Chrome, all of them. Nux, an Imperator. Driving Immortan's ride. First in line behind the Furiosa's greased-up new rig. And they have enough spare parts to make shiny new cars, got them fair and square off the Riders, bought and paid for with precious Aqua Cola.  
  
They reach the Citadel with their haul just as the gate's coming down over the moat like a bridge. Nice trick, that is. Keeps all the good stuff in and the bad stuff out. Slit won't admit it to nobody, but this new management isn't all that rusty. The Doof is still strumming while they're raised up, and every War Boy's blood is singing. There's going to be a feast, Dag said. The first ever. Slit doesn't know what a feast is, but from the look on the Imperators' faces when she said it, it didn't seem like a mediocre affair. And now everyone's running in fifth gear, topped up with all kinds of fuel. Slit's never seen a thing so shine.  
  
"Come on, scrub, scrub!" Nux laughs once they're back in the vault. Barely gets his trousers off before sliding in the shallow pool and smearing the paste off his skin. "War paint's bad for you if it gets in your mouth, Furiosa says so. C'mon, Slit! Scrub!"  
  
Then they're in there together, pressed close with no room to spare. Nux got a good deal trading his old room for the vault, Slit thinks. Plenty of precious privacy. Now that the Immortan's flock is gone, everyone gets their own chunk of rock, unless they like a crowd.  
  
Slit doesn't get why the wives would give away a good place like this, but Nux says there's too many rusty memories here for them. Wouldn't step in even when the door got ripped off and swapped with curtains. Stupid, Slit thinks. Soft. Then he remembers the thought of Hel-Immortan making him breeding stock, and swallows down the words like they're poison.  
  
Stays that way while Nux scrubs him down, silent in the light. Slit can feel him looking again. Looking in that way that makes his skin grow pins. He's about to say something about ripping Nux's innards again, just to snap this strange thing in the air, when Nux speaks up first.  
  
"I'm gonna, Slit," he says. There's nothing quiet or scared in his voice any more, no whisper. The weakling's grown bolder, Slit grins. Or, at least, he would, if he wasn't so darned scared all of a sudden. Nux runs his mechanic's hands down the tattoo of scars on Slit's spine. "If you're gonna, too."  
  
Can't see his face to know if Nux is just high on guzzoline, his brains fried off and the rest of him sparked up. Knows well enough he isn't. Hands too steady on him. Breath too cool to be on fuel. By the V8, Nux is going to kill him dead all over again, kill both of them like he did on the Fury Road, burned and thirsty. Slit reaches back to grasp a warm thigh. He's never been a coward.  
  
Like everything else, it feels strange when Nux spins him around and kisses him. Firm, this time, yet somehow supple. There's only been violence between them since the day they laid eyes on each other. Touches rougher than a mountain's skin. Doesn't feel right like this, so gentle. Slit can't help it when he takes Nux's lip between his teeth and bites.  
  
Nux doesn't hiss. Nux doesn't do a damn thing but smile with skull lips against his face and that's worse. "Gonna be makin' this into a fight, Slit? Go on, pull out your shiv," he laughs.  
  
Slit turns more red than the Citadel's berries. "Knew you were filth, greaser," he bites back. Then bites back with more than words, clamping his jaw shut over Nux's shoulder. Never done this before all tender like this. Not with his driver, his  _Imperator_. Doesn't know what to do when it's not on full throttle.  
  
The water barely reaches their waists even though they're kneeling, so Slit hardly flinches when Nux makes him lie down in it. Won't admit the thought of drowning scares him even if it really kills him. It's not deep enough for that here, Slit sighs in relief, then sighs some more when Nux worms in between his legs once he's all settled, head comfy on the edge of the stone like it's a pillow.  
  
"Won't do nothin' 'less you want me to," Nux says. Looks at him with eyes more bigger than the heads of timber bolts. Slit knows the breeders have been telling Nux things, stories about the Immortan that made Slit's lunch rise as he listened in. They talked about other things, too. Better things like this here deal they have.  
  
"Not gonna go all soft on me, are you?" Slit grins. His shredded cheeks ache with the stretch of it. "Huh, Nuxy?" It's worth the look on his driver's face when Slit calls him that. Nux hates it,  _hates_  it so much it makes him lose his Chrome every time. Anything to get Nux to roughen him up a bit, just how he likes.  
  
Slit knows he's gone and done it the moment he feels those greaser's fingers wrap around his throat, too loose to be a real threat, but just the thought of what Nux could do makes him arch up. "Why the face, Nuxy? Out of fuel?" he cackles. Never likes to play nice. Feels Nux's tongue in his mouth a second later, tasting his scars, trying to shut him up.  
  
It works, for a while. Then Nux has to go and start moving all snake-like, writhing around between Slit's legs, and Slit starts spouting filth again like a busted guzzoline pump. Nux doesn't even try to stop him this time. Bends down and suckles at Slit's breast, more pup than Boy. Slit laughs at that. Laughs even as the tremors rack through him.  
  
They're splashing precious Aqua Cola out onto the warm stone. Slit cares about nothing but the hands wrapped around his throat, the steady pressure in his gut that he knows will burst out of where Nux keeps sliding his thigh against if he goes on see-sawing like that over and over again, and Slit knows he will, by the V8, he'll kill them both—  
  
Nux kills him first, just like he thought. Slides low and drinks him up like Aqua Cola, and now Slit will have to think about this every time he calls Nux a dirty schlanger-eater, and Nux will blush right through his war paint, and "Open wide, Slit," suddenly he ends up with a mouthful of it, too.  
  
He keeps Nux there until he's all nice and dead, holding on the backs of his thighs as Nux shyly tries to pull away. Slit laughs around the weight on his tongue and waits for it. Waits for the stutter of bony hips and the grip Nux has on Slit's skull to turn vicious. Slit almost swears he hears drums when it does. Heavy war-drums. Then Nux goes soft, their pulse weakens, and Slit realizes it's the Doof Wagon revving up deep under the Citadel, at the center of the web of caves.

 

—

  
  
"Move off, Nux. Your elbow's diggin' into my back."  
  
"Can't. No fuel. Was done in before we even got to the feast."  
  
Slit growls as he pushes Nux to the side with what little strength he has left. Always keeps some spare juice, just in case someone needs them up and running. But Slit's aching in places, head buzzing from the rotgut and his belly full with all the treats laid out in the mess hall that Slit could get his hands on, courtesy of Furiosa. Spoiled them, she has. Spoiled the lot of them, from the Wretched to the ones up high. Slit has never felt so soft. Are they all dead? Dead from all this living in one day. He sighs into his pillow.  
  
Like clockwork, Nux throws an arm over Slit's chest. Been doing the same small thing since he carved up Slit's face all wrong and earned him his name. Felt so rusty about it, he kept Slit in his arms while the night fevers broke him, leaking out venom right through his staples and onto the rocks below. Never stopped doing it since.  
  
But it feels a little heavy tonight. A little wrong. Slit pulls on the arm until they're chest to chest and Nux's warm breath washes over his face. Dumb ratbag doesn't even stir. Slit wonders what he's dreaming about. Doesn't matter. Need to wake up real early tomorrow for another supply run before first light. He presses his face into Nux's nape and breathes in. Maybe the night fevers won't take them while they sleep this time.  
  
"Thunder up, Boys, thunder up!"  
  
Nux grunts. "Ace, that you?"  
  
"Rise and shine, beauties," Ace barks. He's got that stupid grin on his mug again, Slit sees. Ever since his boss took over the Citadel, he's been topped up like a fuel tank, all set and ready for Furiosa's call. "Supply run's cancelled. Got Buzzards shootin' flares. They need backup down south, right quick, so get off your arses and gun it!"  
  
What a kicker. Good thing they still have their trousers on. They crawl right after Ace, all hands and knees, just a couple of roaches smoked out of their cloud-nest, and find the Gigahorse purring once they reach the Bay. Slit likes these new War Boys. Quicker than thunder in a sandstorm.  
  
It's not even half-light out there. The air, cold. Ace put the call out so fast, no one's had enough time to get their war paint on. Don't need it, Slit thinks, standing still as his driver greases their faces up. Feels his sockets burning with engine oil. His fingers are twitching already, twitching mad, and something's waking up in there, under his ribcage, even though the rest of him is still asleep.  
  
Nux hands him a flask of guzzoline. "Down the hatch," he says, "Warm you up nice," as he laughs. He's got that crazy look in his eyes that he always gets, that kamakrazee look Slit always mirrors, like he does now, hoisting himself up on the back of this black beast and shouting. They're all shouting. Louder when the bridge comes down. Five-second pause before Furiosa guns it and they're taking off, packed neatly in a row behind the War Rig like a big snake.  
  
And then they spread out. The snake becomes a spider, all legs, fast, faster than the wind making the flags strapped to Slit's thundersticks flap to and fro. They spot the flares in the distance and fang it. Slit can't see his driver's face that well from the perch, but he can hear him, hear Nux laughing his engine roar of a laugh, screaming for Valhalla, and Slit lets his ugly gash-grin split his face in two as they soar to the horizon.

 


End file.
